Miranda's Thoughts
by Arixa23
Summary: Exactly what the title says. Miranda, Prospero's daughter from The Tempest, writes from Naples about her perceptions of the people and things around her. Oneshot, list fic.


**Miranda's Thoughts **on everything 

** My father: **My father was everything in the world to me for fifteen years. He was wise, and learned, and always wanted the best for me. He taught me almost everything I know.

It is my duty, and a pleasure, to love my father. I have always done so, and I do so still. And, as I have said, he always had my best interests at heart. If they were at the expense of other people... well, I do not think empathy was always his best quality. But he did little lasting harm to most of us.

**The Island:** I love the Island. It delighted me from the first, with its beautiful trees and ferns and flowering bushes, and with the unearthly music that came and went, but was always present, like the lapping of the waves. The Island has different moods - it can be peaceful and benevolent, or mysterious and enchanting, or enraged and frightening: just like my father. It was a beautiful home.

I miss it even now. Maybe we will go back to visit someday, Ferdinand says. But I do not know.

It is Caliban's home too.

**Ferdinand:** I love my husband more than anything in the world, or at least with a love equal to or greater than my love for my father or the Island. I think, and everyone else says too, that we are a perfect match. He is fun-loving and serious and understanding all in one, and his gray eyes are beautiful. The rest of him is beautiful too, but I love his eyes. Sometimes we stare into each other's eyes for minutes or hours on end, until someone comes into the room and interrupts us.

Sebastian says I was duped into falling in love with Ferdinand, and would have behaved the same way if himself, or Antonio, or Adrian, or Francisco had been the first man I saw. But I do not think this is true. Not wholly, anyway.

**Naples:** Naples is the first city - as well as the first town, and the first place with human inhabitants - which I had seen within my memory. My first sight of it, when the ship's Master called us on deck to see the city as we sailed into port, took my breath away. The buildings, the enormous buildings, with their beautiful architecture! The wide roads, paved with stone! The colors! And the _people_! I had never dreamed that there were this many people in the world before. I had seen engravings of cities in Father's books, but to experience the real thing... it was more miraculous than the spirits' wonders on the Island.

Naples is a beautiful city, and I love living here. Every day I see something new. The palace is gorgeous, though it was slightly overwhelming to me at first, being used to the simplicity of our cell on the Island.

**Alonso, the King of Naples:** I like my father-in-law very much indeed. He is a good person and, I think, a good ruler. I can see the resemblance of Ferdinand to him, in looks but mostly personality, and with Sebastian as well.

My father does not like the king very much, I think. Then again, I do not think my father likes anyone very much anymore, excepting maybe myself.

**Sebastian:** Despite what my father has told me, I cannot help but like Sebastian. He is quite handsome, and knows how to make me laugh. I think he is perhaps a little envious of Ferdinand's getting me, but he will be all right. I believe he does not dislike his brother, and if the Island's enchantment allowed Antonio to persuade him to kill the king, well, we have all been subject to the Island's magic at one time or another.

**Antonio:** I did not see much of my father's usurping brother on the voyage to Naples. I think Father kept us as separate as possible. From what I have seen, he is dark, charismatic, and has long hair he wears tied back at the nape of his neck. I was a bit afraid for father, staying in his brother's presence, until he assured me that he had instructed his spirits to ensure than Antonio would do no farther harm.

**The spirits, or sprites, of the Island: **The sprites of the Island have been part of my life for as long as I can remember. They were simply part of the enchantment of the Island, helping at tasks that Father instructed them to. They were my unearthly servants, helping to dress me and bathe me and bring us food. They used to play with me and entertain me when I was little. I was never afraid of them, only of some of the otherworldly magic they performed, sometimes. They made my flute, I think.

There is one spirit, somehow more powerful-looking than the others, that I have seen Father conferring with. I think I heard him call it Ariel, once. It flew behind our ship awhile as we sailed to Naples, then disappeared. I tried to show it to Ferdinand, but he could not see it. I do believe this spirit is - or was - Father's chief spirit, before he gave up his art.

**Ships:** It is beautiful to stand on the deck of a ship with the wind blowing in my face, looking out at the horizon. Below deck it is not so wonderful, though.

**Trinculo:** Trinculo was jesting nonstop from the first night when we all slept packed together in our cell to when we stepped off the ship at Naples. I think he was trying desperately to make up to Father and the King. I found him rather funny, and though I know he and Caliban and Stephano did plot to kill Father, I think he is harmless enough in reality. Ah, well.

** Stephano:** After the first night, when he was very drunk and would not either be quiet or answer when spoken to, Stephano was back in his butler persona. I do not care for him much, as this.

Both Trinculo and Stephano were discharged without references when we arrived in Naples. I can understand this - the King did not want to keep a murderous jester and butler in his household. Trinculo took up a position in my uncle Antonio's household, I think, and I do not know what became of Stephano.

**Caliban:** I think both my father and myself were sorely mistaken about Caliban.

I regret this very much.

**Myself:** I know I am well-educated, more so than most girls my age. Many Neapolitan maids cannot read or write, let alone draw, paint, do mathematics, play the flute, and speak Latin and Greek. Yet I am so ignorant of so many of the ways of the world.

I am a bit of a paradox in myself, I suppose. 

A/N: Based off of characterizations from the three productions of The Tempest I was in the summer of 2010.


End file.
